


The Post-Finals Tradition

by Mireille



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Community: maleslashminis, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-21
Updated: 2007-12-24
Packaged: 2019-03-17 09:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13656069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mireille/pseuds/Mireille
Summary: And to think that just a couple of months ago, Connor had been thinking he was too normal for Oz.





	1. Chapter 1

Sometime between the time that Connor and his dad lugged the last box of stuff up to his room and the time he came back from the meeting with his orientation group, he managed to lose his roommate.   
  
"What happened to Jake?" Connor asked the RA who was taking the blue construction-paper circle with "Jake Walton" on it off the door to Connor's room. He and Jake had e-mailed back and forth a few times after they'd got their room assignments this summer, and he'd thought everything was cool. Jake had seemed okay; maybe not someone who'd be Connor's new best friend, but someone he could stand to live with for the next ten months. And he'd gotten e-mail from him, like, three days ago. He hadn't said anything about this.   
  
The RA shrugged. "Nobody tells me stuff like that." He stuck a new paper circle on the door, this one in green and reading, "Daniel Osbourne."   
  
Connor sighed. Jake hadn't seemed weird. Jake had played basketball in high school and was pre-law, and the only thing even slightly strange about him was that he was from Dothan, Alabama, which might as well have been Mars as far as Connor was concerned. He'd never been farther east than Colorado. "Daniel," on the other hand, could be a complete freak. There was his name, for one thing. Not Dan, not Danny, but "Daniel." The only Daniel he knew in high school played the flute in the marching band and was the president of the physics club. This was not a good sign.  
  
But Daniel hadn't turned up by the time Connor had gotten his computer connected to the school network and found out that Jake's dad had had a heart attack two days ago, and Jake had decided not to go to school so far from home, and he hadn't turned up when Connor went to the cafeteria for dinner with some of the guys he'd met at orientation, and so Connor tried to just not worry about it.   
  
When he came back after dinner, the door to the room was open, and he could see a suitcase on one of the beds. Connor's first impression of his new roommate was "short"; the second, after Daniel turned around, was "Wow, kind of old for a freshman." Not that the guy was  _old_ ; he was just older than Connor. Maybe twenty-two, twenty-three, something like that.   
  
"I took a couple of years off," Daniel said, shrugging, and Connor realized he'd said that out loud. Way to be an asshole, Reilly, he thought, grimacing.   
  
"Sorry," he said, but Daniel shrugged again.   
  
"It's okay," he said. "I am kind of old for a freshman."   
  
Now it was Connor's turn to shrug as he settled down on his bed to watch Daniel unpack. He hadn't brought much stuff; all Connor could see was the one suitcase, a guitar case propped in the corner, and a few paperbacks piled on the desk. Connor looked at his half of the room and suddenly felt like he'd brought way too much crap with him. "I'm, uh, Connor," he said after a few minutes, when it became obvious that if there was going to be a conversation going on, he was probably going to have to be the one to start it.   
  
"Yeah. I read the door," Daniel said. "Oz."   
  
"Huh?  
  
"My name. I go by Oz."   
  
Oz. Well, at least he didn't sound like a mouth-breathing flautist any more. Plus, the guitar and the spiky hair were points in the guy's favor. "Cool," Connor said, hoping it sounded more like he was delivering the official Connor Reilly Seal of Approval as opposed to being impressed. "I'm a business major," he said. "Probably. I'm not a hundred percent sure. What about you?"  
  
"I'm, uh." Oz turned from where he was putting some t-shirts into the dresser, giving him a sheepish grin. "Kind of hard to explain. I'm doing the design-your-own major thing. Mostly anthropology, I think. That's why I'm here. I was traveling, met one of the professors doing some field research, he talked me into giving college another try." He lapsed into silence again, finishing his unpacking and stowing his suitcase in the back of the closet while Connor fidgeted with the shiny-slick cover of his brand-new calculus book.   
  
Well. Oz was definitely more interesting than Jake would have been, he thought. A little strange, definitely, but at least he seemed pretty quiet. And he probably wouldn't leave the room in a mess, since he hardly had any stuff to mess up.   
  
Also, there was a good chance that Connor had lucked out and was rooming with the one freshman at Stanford who was old enough to buy his own beer. That could make up for a lot of potential flaws.   
  
"Hey," Connor said after a few minutes. "A couple of the guys and I are heading over to the Co Ho in a little while." He couldn't resist showing off the campus slang he'd picked up that afternoon, especially since Oz wouldn't notice if he got something wrong. "You want to come?"   
  
Oz shook his head, smiling. "Thanks, but I'm kind of OD'd on people right now," he said. "I'm just going to hang here."   
  
At least he'd tried to be friendly, Connor thought. If Oz wanted to be anti-social, that was his choice. And if he thought Connor was too young to hang around with, then maybe he shouldn't have lived on campus.   
  
Connor sent an e-mail to his parents--"everything's fine here, don't worry about me"--and one to Tracy at Evergreen State--"I miss you, why did you have to go to school in Washington?"--before he went down to Dave and Samar's room to see if they were ready to go.   
  
After spending half the night listening to Scott, from his orientation group, talk about how much his roommate sucked, Connor decided that "weird, quiet, and kind of anti-social" was a pretty good deal.   
  
  
***  
  
It turned out Oz wasn't all that anti-social; he'd just spent the past four or five years traveling around the world by himself, and being around a lot of people got old after a while. So he hung out with Connor some of the time--they had a class together three days a week right before lunch, so they ate lunch together, and they studied in the room sometimes, and a couple of nights when the dining hall food just looked too repulsive for words, they called for pizza--and he hung out with some of the DJs from the Zoo sometimes, and sometimes... Connor had no idea. He went off by himself, probably.   
  
Which was cool. Connor had other friends--Dave and Samar and Scott's roommate Ian, because it turned out  _Scott_  was the asshole, not his roommate--and they were thinking about trying to put together an intramural basketball team that winter, and except for the fact that calc was kicking his ass, things were going pretty good.   
  
Good enough that when, one afternoon in early October, Oz asked him if he'd mind staying out of the room for a couple of hours after dinner, Connor didn't have any problem grinning and demanding to know who the hot woman was.   
  
Oz shook his head. "It's not like that," he said.   
  
Connor shrugged. "Hot guy? It's the twenty-first century, it's California, I'm not going to freak at you."   
  
Another head-shake. "I need to meditate for a while."   
  
"Meditate? Like, sit cross-legged and chant 'Om'?"   
  
"Something like that," Oz said. "I'll find another place if it's going to be a problem."  
  
"No problem," Connor said. "I'll hit the library for a while." After a few seconds, he added, "So, you're like, a Buddhist or something?"  
  
"Something like that," Oz said, but his grin seemed just a little strained. Connor could understand that; Tracy always got the same kind of tight smile when people asked her questions about the pentacle necklace she was wearing.   
  
"Cool," Connor said, just to be sure Oz knew he wasn't going to be asking all kinds of freaky questions.   
  
When he got back that night, after he'd spent as long as humanly possible in the library, Oz was already done whatever he'd wanted to do. There was a faint smell of incense in the room; Connor was used to coming back to that, but this time, there  _wasn't_  a faint smell of pot smoke underneath it. Connor had thought, a couple of times, about pointing out that if the RAs caught him, they could both get kicked out of the dorms, but he'd decided not to. It wasn't like Oz was the only guy in the dorm who smoked, and the last thing Connor needed was to feel any more whitebread around his roommate.   
  
Oz was standing at the window, staring out into the dark, his face looking strange and pale in the bright moonlight. For some reason, Connor didn't turn on the lights, just dropped his backpack on the floor and went over to sit on his bed.   
  
He realized after a moment that he was staring, and even though Oz didn't seem to have noticed, felt a sudden need to break the silence. "I should have guessed," he said abruptly.   
  
Oz turned toward him, blinking in surprise. "How?" he said, and then shook his head a little. "I mean, what?"  
  
"Full moon, right?" Connor said, and Oz blinked again.   
  
"Tomorrow," he said, sounding hesitant.   
  
"My girlfriend's a Wiccan," he explained. "I should have realized. I mean, she doesn't do anything the night  _before_  a full moon, but... what do I know? It could be like, you know, Methodists and Catholics, or something. Different kinds of Wiccans."  
  
Oz grinned, and Connor couldn't be sure if he'd seen the other man relax or not. "It's... something like that," he said.   
  
Connor didn't ask any more questions, figuring it wasn't any of his business. After a minute, Oz turned back to the window. Connor watched him for a minute, but the moonlight made Oz look weird and alien again, and after a while, he turned on a light and went to check his e-mail.   
  
  
***  
  
It turned out that not only was Oz old enough to buy beer, he didn't have any problems buying it for his eighteen-year-old roommate. At least, not when he came back from his afternoon class to find Connor sprawled on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.   
  
"Tracy dumped me," Connor said.   
  
"Wait here," Oz had said as he left the room. He came back half an hour later with a brand of Mexican beer Connor didn't recognize--not that shocking, since Connor's vast beer knowledge was mostly that he'd drunk five Coronas at a party his junior year of high school and thought he was throwing up his toenails the next morning--and handed Connor a bottle.   
  
He didn't seem to be expecting Connor to talk; they got through the first bottles without anybody saying anything. But when Connor finally did pick up the printed-out copy of the e-mail Tracy had sent him--"She didn't even call me," Connor said, and Oz nodded--and read him her apologetic explanation about the guy she'd met at some PETA rally, Oz actually seemed to be paying attention.   
  
"Things end when they do," Oz said, when he'd finished.   
  
Connor glared at him. "What kind of advice is that?"  
  
"There's a girl out there somewhere," Oz said after another long minute or two. "Maybe we'll run into each other again one of these days. Maybe we won't. But the one thing I learned is that you can't make things happen when they aren't supposed to."  
  
After his second beer, Connor decided that made a lot of sense. After the third, he'd made up this whole history for Oz that had him traveling the world because of a broken heart.   
  
It was all complete crap, of course, but it made a pretty good story, anyway.   
  
  
***  
  
Of course Connor's last final was in the last exam period on Friday, so he had plenty of time to stress about it. He'd spent all week in the library, alternately studying and panicking, so he hadn't even asked Oz when he was leaving for Christmas break.   
  
Winter break, Connor corrected himself; when your roommate does some kind of full-moon ceremony every month, he probably doesn't celebrate Christmas.   
  
When Connor staggered in from his final, wishing he didn't need to try to resell his textbooks so that he could light a bonfire with them, he was surprised that Oz was still there. He might have been packed; there was a suitcase on the floor by his bed, but it was hard to tell whether there was stuff in it or not. Besides textbooks and stuff like pens and notebooks, Oz hadn't really acquired a lot more stuff over the quarter.   
  
"You survived," Oz said as Connor closed the door behind him.   
  
"Barely." Connor flopped down on the floor next to Oz.   
  
"Heading out tonight?"  
  
He shook his head. "My dad's coming tomorrow morning. You?"  
  
Oz shrugged. "Figured I could wait until morning."   
  
Connor realized he didn't even have the faintest idea of where Oz was from. "Going home?"  
  
Oz gave him a weird smile. "Home's kind of at the bottom of a hole in the ground."  
  
Connor remembered that. One of his friends from high school had been going to UC Sunnydale, until the whole town had gotten sucked into some kind of freak sinkhole a couple of weeks before graduation. "Sorry," he said. Then, hesitantly, "Did your family--are they okay?"  
  
"Yeah." Oz's smile was more real this time, reassuring. "They're in Ojai."   
  
Connor smiled back. "Good." And maybe Oz was wearing off on him, because that was all he felt the need to say; he just lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, until he realized that Oz had fished a plastic bag out of his backpack and was rolling a joint.  
  
"Shit," Oz said when he realized Connor was watching him. "I should have asked if you minded."  
  
Connor realized then that no matter what he'd smelled when he came in the room, he hadn't ever seen Oz smoke before. Maybe Oz did care that he could get Connor in trouble that way. "No," he said, surprising himself, and then surprised himself again by holding his hand out for it once it was lit.   
  
He didn't think about what his parents would say, didn't think about what Oz had to be thinking when Connor breathed in wrong and made himself choke. He was in college, and he'd just survived the final exam from hell, and he deserved a little stress relief.   
  
He was pretty sure it didn't have any effect on him at all, though. He didn't see anything all that weird about lying on the floor and listening to Oz talk--more than Connor remembered him talking in one night before--telling random stories about the people he'd met and the places he'd been: an old guy he'd met in Tibet, spending most of 2001 traveling through India, some village in Peru that he'd spent six months in last year.   
  
Then he realized he'd spent the last hour watching Oz's mouth move while he talked, wondering what it'd feel like to kiss him.   
  
And whoa, maybe Connor should never, ever get high again, because that was a little too out-of-nowhere for him.   
  
  
***  
  
"It's not really religious," Oz said, after Connor had asked him if maybe he could learn something about the meditation-and-incense thing Oz did around the full moon every month. Oz didn't stress, or spaz, or bang his head on his desk because he couldn't figure out his chemistry homework. Connor was hoping his own excessive stress--and the quarter was only a couple of weeks old--was due to having made the wrong choice in religion, namely, not really having one. And not related to college being a zillion times harder than high school, or even to having had those what-if-I-kissed-Oz thoughts a couple of times when he hadn't had anything stronger than Altoids in his system.   
  
"So it's Zen, or... what?" Connor tried to act like he had these conversations all the time. Really, even when he was dating Tracy, this wasn't the kind of stuff they talked about. And while Connor's dad had given him this whole spiel about how he'd loved all-night philosophical bull sessions when he was in college, Connor didn't think anybody did those any more. Or maybe that would just be another reason why Dad would tell him he should've gone to Notre Dame.   
  
"Mostly 'what'," Oz admitted. Then, after a minute, he said, "It's about... self-control. It's not anything you really have to worry about."  
  
Connor snorted. "Yeah, because us nineteen-year-old guys, we never have to worry about lacking  _that_. We leave that up to you old farts."   
  
Oz chuckled, and Connor grinned back at him. "If you want to learn how to meditate, I guess I could show you some stuff. It might be good for your stress levels."  
  
"You noticed, huh?"  
  
"You grind your teeth in your sleep."   
  
Oh. Great. "Then bring on the 'om,'" he said, confused when Oz shook his head.   
  
"Later," he said.   
  
"But tonight's when--"  
  
"Sorry. That's..." Again, Oz hesitated. "It's kind of private. But tomorrow afternoon, okay?"  
  
"Sure." Connor picked up his backpack and headed for the library, feeling kind of like a kid who got told to go out and play.   
  
  
***  
  
Meditation helped with the stress, but not as much as getting a chemistry tutor had. Other things that reduced Connor's stress level over the next several weeks included: hanging out at the back of Queer-Straight Alliance meetings, doing a couple of laps around Lake Lag every afternoon, filtering e-mail from Tracy (who had split up with Washington-PETA-Guy) straight into his trash folder, and Oz getting a shift at the Zoo and being around less often than usual.   
  
By the end of February, Connor had figured out that he was going to get a B in Chem unless he completely fucked up; that he was probably bisexual; that he had a thing for his roommate that wasn't going away; and that if freshman year didn't end soon, taking his Intro to Humanities requirement with it, he was probably going to have to set something on fire. Weirdly, it was the B that was freaking him out most.   
  
The year would end in June, after all, and it wasn't like he had to do anything about his crush on Oz. He was way too normal for Oz. Oz, when he wasn't around Connor, hung out with guys with black nail polish and t-shirts from bands Connor had never heard of and hair in colors Connor's mom would ground him for a hundred years for, even now. He'd traveled around the world, and he was majoring in some incomprehensible combo of anthropology and folklore and philosophy. Connor was kind of buttoned-down, overall, and was probably going to major in finance. Not exactly a match made in heaven.   
  
It never occurred to him that Oz might be straight anyway, but it wasn't like he spent hours thinking about it. Just sometimes, when Oz was sprawled on his bed reading, and Connor looked over and thought that it'd be kind of cool if they were lying next to each other, with his hand on Oz's back as they both kept on studying.   
  
He was kind of a dork, Connor knew, but he'd had a long time to get used to that idea, and he was okay with it.   
  
  
***  
  
Winter quarter finals were, if possible, even worse than fall, and so Connor didn't think twice about declaring "getting stoned with Oz" a post-finals tradition. After all, he asked himself, what was the worst that could happen?   
  
Well, other than getting arrested and expelled and sent to prison, where he was pretty sure he'd get to explore his bisexuality in ways he would not be cool with. But that wasn’t going to happen. The worst that was going to happen here was that he was going to embarrass himself in deep and profound ways, and as far as he knew, that wasn't fatal.   
  
Oz wasn't talkative this time, even by Oz-standards, but Connor made up for it, talking about nothing until Oz held up his hand and said, "Listen to this," before putting a CD in Connor's stereo and hitting play.   
  
Connor listened. He didn't much care, really, because it wasn't the kind of music he usually listened to, but he listened. And then he watched Oz listening, because Oz listening to music was totally different than normal people listening to music. Oz was really, seriously, paying attention, and Connor wondered why Oz wasn't a music major.   
  
He thought about asking, but then, when he opened his mouth, the question that came out was, "What would you do if I kissed you?"  
  
Oz just looked at him for a second before he said, "Try me."  
  
When Connor did, he found out that the answer was:  _kiss back._  
  
  
***  
  
Connor had planned on spending spring break freaking out about the fact that yeah, he and his roommate had made out. It seemed like a good plan. Freak out at home, have a calm and reasonable conversation with Oz when they got back to school. Calm and reasonable seemed like a good way to handle things with Oz, and Connor could do that. He'd already dropped a couple of hints to his mom about his likely non-straightness, so he'd known disaster wasn't looming.   
  
It was all going to work out fine. Not as good, as spring break plans went, as going to Mexico with his buddies from high school, but a lot cheaper.   
  
Then he got hit by a freaking  _van_  when he was out getting the mail. He remembered thinking, "Oh, shit, I'm going to die," as he slammed into the garage.   
  
Then he got up.   
  
So between talking to the cops, and the weird way his parents were looking at him, and the fact that someone hit him with a van  _on purpose_ , not to mention that he was apparently Superman or something, it turned out he had a lot more to freak out about than just having had his tongue in Oz's mouth.   
  
The weirdness didn't stop once he went back to Stanford, either, because his parents were calling a lot more often and being aggressively normal at him, which was a good sign that they were still freaking out and trying not to.   
  
He thought he should probably say something about it to Oz, just to explain that it wasn't the post-finals thing that was making him act like a spaz, but he wasn't sure how to start. If he said, "So, it turns out I'm invulnerable," Oz probably wouldn't do more than raise an eyebrow, but a raised eyebrow from Oz was like a full-fledged panic attack from most people.   
  
So instead, he started spending a lot of time in the library, theoretically doing homework, but mostly looking up "freak accidents" on the Internet.   
  
When Oz asked him if he was all right, Connor almost started laughing hysterically. What else could he be, after all?  
  
  
***  
  
He didn't see much of Oz these days, and while part of Connor was disappointed, and another part felt guilty that he probably looked like a jackass, most of him was just relieved. He didn't have any energy to deal with anything outside his own head right now.   
  
For a few minutes, back at Vail's place, he'd felt like he was two people: Connor Reilly, the same him he'd always been--except apparently  _not_ \--and that other Connor, who was mostly... angry. A lot.   
  
He didn't feel like that now; the other Connor--he knew the "other Connor" was somehow the real one, but that just got him confused and weirded-out and sounding like a drunk philosophy major--was just...something he kind of remembered, like a really vivid, bizarre dream.   
  
But he'd just found out that his parents weren't his parents, and he wasn't even--his real parents were  _vampires_ , and he'd technically been born  _three years ago_ , and he'd had a  _kid_  who'd been some kind of freaky demon-god-thing, and bizarre dream or not, it took a lot of getting used to. And it wasn't the kind of stuff that your friends, or your roommate, or your weird crush object, could help you get used to. He was pretty sure this was the kind of thing you had to deal with on your own.   
  
After a couple of weeks, though, he started feeling guilty, so instead of going off by himself after dinner, he went back to the room. He knew Oz had a night class this quarter; he usually went back to get his books after dinner. Connor could say what he had to say without having to hang out with Oz afterward if things got awkward.   
  
Oz came in a few minutes after Connor. He smiled a little as he headed over to his desk. "Hey."   
  
"Hey," Connor said. "Um. Do you have a second?"  
  
Oz nodded. "Sure." Then, looking at Connor thoughtfully, he said, "Are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah." Then he shook his head. "No. Kind of. I'm. Uh. I'm going through some stuff right now," he said.   
  
"I figured. Look, it's no big--"  
  
"No," Connor said quickly. "Not that stuff. I'm okay with that. Uh, really, I'm as okay with that as you want me to be. But there's this other stuff--family stuff, and I just... I need some time to deal."   
  
Oz looked up at him again, and this time the smile was a little bigger. "You know where to find me."  
  
Connor nodded. "Yeah. I do."  
  
  
***  
  
He'd survived a whole year, and even after the mess that was this quarter, he was pretty sure his GPA wasn't completely trashed.   
  
He'd  _survived_  a whole year, which was more amazing than anybody could possibly understand. Except him, of course. And Angel. If Angel was still alive, or no more dead than he ever was, or however you phrased it with vampires. Connor was pretty sure he was, because the world hadn't ended, but after exams he was going to L.A. to see what he could find out.   
  
Not right after exams, of course. Right after exams, he was going back to his room to pack, and to see if Oz was still around.   
  
He was, sitting on the bare mattress of his bed, which was a pretty good sign that he'd been waiting for Connor to get back. It took Oz a lot less time to pack than it did Connor, and he could have been long gone while Connor was still sweating through his last final if he'd wanted to be. If he'd stuck around for the traditional post-finals hanging out, that had to be a good sign.  
  
Connor closed the door behind him and took a deep breath. "So," he said. "About that family stuff." Oz deserved an explanation, Connor thought, even if he couldn't have the whole explanation because there was no actual way to explain it without making Oz wonder if Connor hadn't maybe snapped completely.   
  
Oz would be okay with part of an explanation, Connor was sure. Oz had his own stuff that he didn't give Connor lots of details about, and so the fact that Connor had some private details all of his own would not be a problem.   
  
Except that Oz probably wasn't some kind of supernatural freak-boy who'd spent most of his life in another dimension, after he'd been kidnapped from his vampire dad, and then had been given this whole different life by magic. Statistically speaking, Connor wasn't sure it was that much less likely that there'd be two of them than one, but then again, he didn't take stats until next fall.   
  
And to think that just a couple of months ago, Connor had been thinking he was too  _normal_  for Oz.   
  
"Yeah?" Oz said finally, when he'd probably decided Connor was never going to get around to saying anything.   
  
"I'm adopted," Connor said, because it was almost true. "I didn't know until last month."  
  
Oz nodded. "Are you okay with that?"  
  
"Yeah," he said, even though he hadn't known it until just then. "It's just... I met my dad. My real dad. And he's--it's--" He broke off, shaking his head. "It's too weird," he said. For a second, he considered telling Oz anyway, but then he put it all together in his head:  _I used to be another person. My real dad is a vampire. And I'm kind of a superhero._  Definitely too weird. "You'd never believe me."  
  
Oz tilted his head slightly, looking over at him thoughtfully. Then he smiled. "I can believe a lot of stuff," he said. "Try me."


	2. BONUS: Timestamp meme: immediately after the end of "The Post-Finals Tradition"

Connor had been looking at his shoes the entire time he'd been explaining everything he'd found out about himself this spring--well, not everything, because Oz had been there for some parts of it, but the parts about Angel and being somebody else and  _vampires being real_. It was hard to know when to stop talking, because Oz didn't say anything the whole time, and Connor just kept trying to fill the silence, to not give Oz a chance to call Connor a liar and a freak.  
  
Not that Oz would  _say_  that, but Connor was sure he'd be able to see it in Oz's face, if he looked up, which was why he wasn't going to.  
  
But finally, he ran out of things to say, and he just sat there on the edge of his bed, staring down at his feet. His mom was going to have a fit about his shoes, he thought, which were falling apart. She'd given him a MasterCard for stuff like that, but this quarter, there just hadn't ever seemed like a good time.  
  
Just like there hadn't ever seemed like a good time to tell Oz that his real dad was a vampire. "Well," Connor said, after a minute, "aren't you going to tell me I need professional help?"  
  
"No," Oz said. "I believe you."  
  
Of all the things Connor had expected Oz to say, that wasn't anywhere on the list. "You what?"  
  
"Believe you," Oz said again.  
  
"I just told you my real parents were vampires!" This is your brain on drugs, Connor thought wildly. He was never, ever smoking anything ever again. He might not even eat smoked  _sausage_.  
  
"Yeah, I know," he said. Then he hesitated before saying, "I, um, know your dad."  
  
Yeah. Definitely the drugs. "What?"  
  
"Angel. I know him. Sunnydale was... interesting."  
  
Oh, god. His maybe-kind-of-boyfriend knew his dad. His  _vampire_  dad. There was no way in which Connor's life wasn't the most fucked-up thing imaginable. At least Oz looked uncomfortable, too, so Connor wasn't the only one recognizing the fucked-up-ness. "I--you--okay, this is not what I was expecting."  
  
Oz smiled at him. "Yeah. I get that." Then he crossed the room, sitting down next to Connor on the bed and putting his hand on Connor's shoulder. "But it's going to be fine."  
  
Connor was about to argue, but then Oz was leaning in to kiss him, and arguing seemed a lot less important than the slight scrape of stubble against Connor's cheek, the feel of Oz's mouth against his. It was hard to believe he'd freaked out a little about this a few months ago. These days, "I kissed a guy," didn't even register on his own personal weirdness scale.  
  
Then Oz pulled back a little, sighing. "There's something I need to tell you," he said.  
  
"Go ahead."  
  
"It may put you in weirdness overload," he warned Connor.  
  
"Hello, child of a vampire here. And I know you're not a vampire; you go out in the daylight."  
  
"No, not a vampire," Oz said, and there was something about the emphasis on the last word that got Connor's brain working. Not a  _vampire_.  
  
"What are you, then?" he asked, and was extremely satisfied with himself when Oz blinked in surprise. "I've met vampires and demons, and Angel's girlfriend's a werewolf, so whatever it is, I can handle it." He was pretty sure Oz wasn't a demon, and he'd  _seen_  Oz during the full moon, and apart from the meditation thing, he was perfectly normal. But still. He could cope.  
  
"Werewolf," Oz said, just like that. Just like he had lots of conversations like this:  _My dad's a vampire. Oh, yeah? Well, I'm a werewolf._  
  
"You can't be," Connor protested. "The full moon--"  
  
"It's this whole... control thing," Oz said. "Meditation and herbs and--"  
  
"The thing you do every month," Connor finished for him, and Oz nodded. Then everything was too much, and Connor started laughing, his head on Oz's shoulder just so there was something holding him upright. "Oh, crap," he said. "Angel is never, ever going to let me hear the end of this."

**Author's Note:**

> [me on tumblr](https://mireille719.tumblr.com)


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